Years ago the old Inquirer Sunday mag ran an excerpt of a poem by Christopher Morley called "The Shore In September" that was so perfect. I clipped it out and stashed it somewhere but have never been able to find the whole thing.

Here's the excerpt, as printed in the Sunday mag on Sept. 26th, 1993. A little melancholy, maybe, though Morley also takes apart the familiar figures of summer, circa 1920, with razor-sharp efficiency. Those types sound amazingly familiar, circa 2007. But what's a vamperino? /Amy

"The sands are lonely in the fall. On those broad New Jersey beaches, where the rollers sprawl inward in ridges of crumbling snow, the ocean looks almost wistully for its former playmates. The children are gone, the small brown legs, the toy shovels and the red tin pails. The familiar figures of the summer season have vanished: the stout ladies who sat in awninged chairs and wrestled desperately to unfurl their newspapers in the wind; the handsome mahogany-tanned lifesavers, the vamperinoes incessantly drying their tawny hair. . . . All that life and excitement, fed upon hot dogs and vanilla cones, anointed with cold cream and cintronella, has vanished for another year."

- "The Shore in September," Christopher Morley, circa 1920

Viva Las Amys! Thanks!
Robert Pinsky, the former US Poet Laureate and native of Long Branch, NJ has a few good ones about the shore as well. Ahh, Jerz.

Thank God for september....no more shoobs.

I just wanted drop a quick line to say I really enjoyed reading your blog. You did a great job and I look forward to it again next year!

No more "shoobs" huh...now gently close your eyes until next season and keep in mind that the desolate wasteland you inhabit would become your year round existence without any tourist dollars to prop up the local economy and everything you folks complaining about "Shoobs" take for granted (basics like municipal water, sewer, etc. your job or the jobs of your family members). Take if from me...it would be like living in the most middle of the Mid West--but with saltwater, more trash, syringes and dead fish. I have a name for you (and all others who complain about shoobs): "MORON."

Call me a "shoob" but I am most certainly a more welcome visitor to your community that you are as a resident. I have spent the last 40+ years visiting your tourist attractions, making significant donations to your community centers, your playgrounds, your animal shelters, your zoo, your beach replenishing projects, your boardwalk upgrades, and your wildlife centers. I love the shore and am happy to contribute to its beauty - it's your miserable attitude that can make the shore seem ugly. Most "townies" - at least the ones that have a decent attitude about visitors - are usually grateful for my generous tips and my repeated visits.

What goes around comes around, Anonymous. I can only hope that you will be treated as poorly as you treated the "shoobs" when you arrive at your next vacation destination. And I hope their attitudes are just like yours.

You tell 'em. There is nothing more classless than the anti-shoobie mindset. Especially when those gorgeous beaches are replenished by STATE and FEDERAL dollars. Without the shoobs your beach-block homes would have washed away years ago.

Anyone that feels insulted by being referred to as a shoob, please accept my apology. Please keep coming every summer and spending all of your money. Keep renting and buying homes at any price. Your generosity for 90 days every summer has made many of us very wealthy. So please continue to come from PA and NY and continue to spend as much money as you possibly can. We don't care how rude rude you act or that you forget how to drive a car when you get here. Just keep spending your money.

Come September we will shut down the town and pine away for your return, since most of you believe the our life ends when you leave in August. How I hope that you never realize what happens at the shore the rest of the year.

One other comment, when I visit family in Berwyn I do not take my family for a bike ride down the middle of Route 30 but you continue to feel that everyone must come to a stop while you ride 5 bikes wide down the middle of our streets.

Again I thank you for your patronage and for paying for my children's college education.

Hopefully your children will obtain a better education than you got from the matchbook cover GED program you "graduated" from. You may have family in Berwyn, but your mentality is pure trailer park.
Why not let us all know what town you are in so we know to avoid it next year.

Ode to spending time at the shore …
( Amy we miss you …)

Cruise
Top down, Unload.

Dropping in …
Ventnor pier waves
locals whisper – “he’s going to get hurt (for 25 years plus!)”
Feel, breeze, heat, people, days of old,
argue about zoning,
construction
casino buses pour in …
give the elderly something to do.

Local / out of towners
mixing it up on the streets of Margate …
nice car, who cares Hot Rod,
experience, you know ... the $$$

Miss the friends the years make
forever at a loss
who actually likes us ... tolerates.
Must wait and wait and wait and wait - acceptance
into the club.
as rare as a song bird singing in The City …

Forever the names
and the whispers, oh the whispers … the $$$ …
isolated, remorse, taxed, crowded, shunned …

our door has always been open...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shoobie